L
isten: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. Billy has gone to sleep
a senile widower and awakened on his wedding day. He has walked through
a door in 1955 and come out another one in 1941…Billy is spastic in
time…he is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he
never knows what parts of his life he is going to have to act in the
next.

I first read Slaughterhouse-Five the way I do most books; I
devoured the first ten to fifteen pages, skipped to the end, and then
worked my way towards the middle of the book from both directions. That’s
how I read every book from childhood into adulthood. I even studied for my
PhD exam in literature and reviewed books for the Washington Post
using this method. I readmuch like Billy Pilgrim experiences
time—in starts and stops and never in sequence, everything out of order.

“Why would you do such a thing?” A writer friend of mine once asked me at a
group dinner after I mentioned my style of reading and my need to know how
a story ends. “The end is meant to be experienced as the end—it’s a
journey,” he explained. Others turned to hear my reply, but I couldn’t find
anything satisfying to say. I knew my reading process wasn’t more
efficient; if anything, it took me longer to read books and stories, to
piece together exactly what happened. I didn’t understand then, the
connection between how I read books and how I often processed time, in
stops and starts, my desire to know the end fueled by fear and a desperate
need for safety, for knowing what would happen.

I did not expect to discover the answer while reading the stories about
Harvey Weinstein and other predators. I didn’t expect to remember Billy
Pilgrim and finally realize why I understood him on an intuitive level that
unnerved me. We are both unstuck in time, traveling the random bricolage of
past, future, and present moments. Transgressions and violations of my
boundaries as a child forever weakened my tie to the present. For instance,
I might be on a date with someone whose body frame reminds me of my
grandfather’s. All of a sudden, I’m five years old again, back in the peach
room with my grandfather’s head between my legs. Or my date might offer to
buy me a gift when I find myself in Target at nine years old, when a
well-dressed man with a soothing voice put his hand on my shoulder as his
body inched closer to mine. He promised to buy me a toy. Will my date try
to coax me with something sweet like my grandfather or stalk me and make me
promises like the stranger in the toy aisle?

When my mother found out about these incidents, she told me not to talk to
strangers and not to play doctor or post office with other children, as if
such rules would keep me safe. Society gave me more rules as I entered my
twenties: don’t get drunk at a party, don’t walk alone to your car at
night, don’t be too flirtatious on a first date. Obey the rules, and
predators won’t be able to find you. But according the Tralfamadorians, the
aliens who abducted Billy Pilgrim, there are no rules. To askwhy me “is a very Earthling question to ask…Why you. Why us for that matter?” they tell Billy. “Have you
ever seen bugs trapped in amber?…Well, here we are Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in
the amber of this moment. There is no why.”

According to our patriarchal culture, I am trapped in the amber of being a woman. I am to expect violation from men, and yet, I am bombarded
with rules about how to prevent it, and when it happens, society will
demand to know why I couldn’t stop it. Time travel was the only
way I could survive this destructive logic as I floated between the living
room where Lawrence Welk music played and the bathroom where my grandfather
stood, a great big blue towel being pulled off his waist. I learned how not
to be fully present, how to let a portion of myself escape. Survivors like
me send that part out to the ceiling, the sky, another room or an imaginary
land to ensure we have something left when it is all over.

Sometimes, though, we don’t know we’ve been trapped until after the fact.
We forget that no matter how many rules we follow, a predator finds a
loophole. I was in the fifth grade, asking my teacher Mr. Smith what
assignments I missed the day I was home sick. Mr. Smith sported a square
jaw framed by square-rimmed glasses and a short haircut. He was exactly how
you would picture a fifth-grade teacher or a serial killer. Leaning back in
his chair, hands folded in deep thought he told me that everyone wrote a
paper about self-identity. “That can mean anything, of course, like changes
in your personality,” he said softly. “But some really good papers talked
about bodily changes. Some were very detailed and
described their crotch too.” He cleared his throat and covered his mouth as
he said crotch, as if the word were an accident, as if it didn’t
really come from him. I went home and wrote about my body in the kind of
critical, detached detail that will one day land me in an English PhD
program, but functioned as a prose driven peep show for my teacher. I
described my recently budding breasts and the tufts of hair cropping up in
new places. I received an A on the paper, but my joy was short lived when I
showed it to my mother, her face turning to stone as she read. I realized I
had done something wrong again and mentally flip through all the rules she
has taught me. Which one did I accidentally break?

“Your teacher is a pervert,” she said in a tone so low it was almost a
growl. I couldn’t tell who she was angrier at—the teacher for being a
pervert or me for letting myself be manipulated again after what
my grandfather did. After the man in the store. “Never stay after class or
talk to him alone. Don’t ever talk to anyone about your body, either.”

I wanted to argue that Mr. Smith got inside my head, not my body, but
neither seemed to matter since I wasn’t taken out of his class nor was Mr.
Smith disciplined because “nice men” can bend logic to erase boundaries
they believe shouldn’t exist. In a culture where predators can develop and
wield such superpowers, what defense does a woman have?

*

When I turned twelve, my mother gave up blaming society for its rape
culture and focused solely on my culpability. One night she laid out slips
of paper on the dining room table and instructed me to list the sexual
demons inside of me. She obviously assumed I had many. I’m a slut, a cunt, a witch and bitch, I wrote, channeling Dr.
Seuss. Already, I was learning the names society would call me when I made
the wrong move. If you're a woman, you’ve heard these names shouted at you
by the guy on the corner, the one you try to avoid by taking a different
route to and from work. Societal logic dictates no harm, no foul: a catcall
never hurt anyone. The lists my mother made me write were just words on
paper, but they slowly etched their way into my identity until I didn’t
even know who I was anymore.

By the time many of us are adults, we realize that neither logic nor the
rules will save us because the unthinkable can happen anywhere: in an
alley, on a bus, or in a classroom filled with small desks all in a row.
Those memories then become stuck in amber, places that we involuntarily
revisit just as Billy Pilgrim could be watching a barbershop quartet and
suddenly be back in a meat locker with four German guards, their
expressions one of open-mouthed horror while they hear the carpet bombing
of Dresden above. Traumas also shoot us too far into the future, into many
possible futures. I skip back to past mistakes and fast forward to the
situation I might find myself in. I navigate the hypothetical as
if it were fact, thereby denying myself any real time in the present. I am
rarely present. Almost never, because when I actually let myself be fully
in the moment and vulnerable, that is when the unthinkable happens.

One night I was standing next to a friend at a writing conference when he
lightly patted my back. “You’re looking good,” he said, then slid his hand
down all the way to my ass. “Really good.”

I was thirty-nine. He was married, with kids, and a baby on the way. As I
moved out of his reach and asked about his wife, I tried to figure out
where my calculations went wrong. How did I not know he would try
this? Other people would say that a pat on the ass is nothing and argue
that if we get upset over every little infraction, it is the end of all
flirting and procreation. The Tralfamadorians would understand this point
of view, I’m sure. Bugs trapped in amber don’t have much free will. I went
back to my room and wondered what I had done to encourage him or suggest he
could hit on me. I revisit this memory when another friend starts
commenting on my appearance, hands accidentally grazing my body once he’s
had too much to drink. I make a mental note to keep one or two people
between us whenever we’re both at a party. It is a chess match. He takes a
step. I take a counter step. Of course, it might have been a mistake. It
might never happen again. When I look into the future, though, I can’t be
sure.

So often we are chided for not knowing how to save ourselves. I stay late
at social functions because I make some of my best connections for future
projects after the crowds have died away. I usually leave after midnight,
sometimes even as late as two or three in the morning, and must figure out
how to get home when the train station is a fifteen-minute walk away. There
is a long stretch with little lighting and very few people out. I hurry
along to wait at a mostly empty train station. It is just me and a few men.
It seems to be always just a few men. I turn down my music. I look for
exits. I think about what might happen. One night I got on my
train and arrived in Chelsea, where the streets are well lighted except for
my block, which is more residential. I wasn’t worried, though, since it was
a thirty-second walk down the street to my complex. Then I heard footsteps
behind me. I didn’t turn around but sped up until I reached the gate and
swiped my card. For a split second, I thought I made it safely inside. For
a split second, I relaxed until I realized the person behind me had sped up
and followed me inside the gate. I turned around to see a tall, thin man.

“Oh, you live here too?” I asked. I wasn’t scared yet, but I looked around
to see which windows were lit, where to direct my voice should I need to
cry for help.

“Yeah, I’m staying with a friend in one of the apartments,” he said
casually. “I’m not sure how to use the card yet.”

“I can show you.” I wanted proof he belonged there. I wanted to believe I
didn’t just let a stranger into the complex, a stranger who might follow me
to my building.

“That’s all right, I’ll learn it some other time.” He had a nice smile, an
easy demeanor. He was not threatening. The ones who got me when I was young
were never threatening. That is how they got me.

“Then let’s get you checked in to the front desk, so I don’t get in trouble
for letting you in,” I said, even though I knew no one was at the desk. I
didn’t know what else to do other than politely threaten him with the
possibility of meeting other people, no matter how imaginary.

“You know, I don’t want to get you in trouble. I’ll come back later,” he
replied, his grin even wider, his hands trying to wave away my worry as he
turned and went back out through the entrance. Once I heard the clang of
the gate, I breathed easier for a moment. The man kept his promise and came
back—not to find me, but because he was looking for a warm place to sleep.
I was not the primary target for once, but if I was, would I have been
exonerated of wrongdoing, given the litany of questions every woman faces
when the hypothetical morphs into the concrete?
Why did you put yourself at risk? Why didn’t you take a cab home? Why
didn’t you start yelling?
These are the details demanded of every sexual assault survivor. What was the time? We forget the woman of the present moment—how
she might be feeling, bleeding, hurting, and wounded—and ask if it was only
ten thirty or sometime between two and four a.m. when monsters roam the
streets? What part of town was she in and how many drinks did she consume?
I replay her story. I replay my story. How did I not expect the man would
follow me in, when so many others have simply walked on? These are
questions one poses to time travelers. How could you not know this would happen? At the next party I
attend, I count my drinks and watch the clock. I sometimes take a cab home
even though I can’t afford it. I always look for witnesses now.

*

Perhaps lack of witnesses is why I have only been alone in one man’s
apartment since moving to New York City four years ago. I was invited over
to his place in Harlem for drinks and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. What better movie to watch when
you travel so easily between reality, fiction, and madness? Yet once I
stepped over the threshold and into this closed off space, away from any
other eyes and ears, I felt the invisible oppression of what was expected
of me: a few drinks, more kissing than what we had done at the coffee shop,
more than what had transpired at the bar with his hand slowly moving up my
thigh. I didn't know if I wanted it to go further. I flip trip into the
future. What were you thinking? friends would ask, if anything
went wrong. A movie and drinks in a man’s home means only one thing. The room
swirled around me as I was thrown back into the peach room where I held the
stiff penis of an old man in my five-year-old hands. One blink and I was
sitting on a couch across from my therapist, all blond and perky as she
reminded me that I set the boundaries. “You can always say no,” she added,
in that optimistic, cheerful tone Nancy Reagan used when talking about
drugs.

But how often does no statistically work, especially after you
have said yes to going to his place? Yes to his mouth on
your breast? Yes to his lifting up your skirt and pulling down your tights.
I panicked and cited work stress. “My editor called today and gave me a
last minute book to review. I don’t even own a copy of it yet.” I figured a
work emergency was stronger than a no created only out of
intuition and haphazard time travel. Stick to the concrete when you can.

“Then you really need to relax all the more,” he said, and handed me a
drink. It was a counter move. We were in a chess game that I hoped wouldn’t
turn violent. I sipped my whiskey and coke and wondered how long I had to
stay before I could leave without causing a scene. After all, I hadn’t
canceled on him earlier in the day, when it would have made sense, but now
that I was here I was forced to jump into several futures. It was another
kind of time travel: imaging how I would have to say no to sex, no to oral sex. No to whatever long and original mental checklist
he had constructed around this night.

He noticed that I was very tense and began to give me a neck rub. I talked
about the possibility of screwing myself over with the editor if I didn’t
get the book tonight before the stores closed. The newspaper I reviewed for
was a big deal. I couldn’t be late for a deadline. He said there was plenty
of time, and recited Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven because he was an
actor and somehow thought hearing a macabre poem might relax me, or at
least make me see that my troubles were not as bad as a man plagued by a
demonic raven? There were tears in his eyes when he got to the part about
dead Lenore. I began to wonder if I would die there when he took Harry
Potter’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard off the bookshelf and read
about the Deathly Hallows (his kids loved this book, he explained. That
didn't explain why I, at 45, after expressing a desire to leave, should
want to hear a tale about three wizards who couldn’t outsmart death). Was
he trying to wear down my resistance through storytelling? Were most men
trained to create narratives that would somehow circumvent a woman’s no, reroute it to mean yes after a certain amount of
cultural deconstruction?

When he was done reading, I decided it was time for extreme measures. I
lied.

“Look, I’m a really slow reader, so I have to get this book tonight.” I
should have told him about my fear of endings. I should have told him that
I still didn’t know how to give him the benefit of the doubt that we could
just watch a movie and that he wouldn’t pressure me for anything more, that
I had never experienced love because I had never been present long
enough to receive it. But I didn’t understand then that I was a time
traveler, and had already been to so many memories and rooms that night
there was no place left for me to be other than gone. That the
evening had become bizarrely tinged with the gothic certainly didn’t help.

He nodded to show empathy. “I’ll go with you. I know where the closest
Barnes & Noble is.” I acquiesced to this announcement since at least I
get to leave. I even rested my head on his shoulder as we rode the bus to
the bookstore. It was easier to be physical with him in public, where
others would make sure my date would behave. I count safety in degrees the
way I divide an hour into minutes. My date never called or texted me again.
He probably remembers it as a failed movie night. I remember it as escaping
the different futures I saw, a few which had no escape.

That was 2015, before #metoo, before our stories formed a web of connection
on the internet, before I realized I was meeting other time travelers. We
are connecting stories from our past to our present, trying to secure a
better future that is constantly being reworked and reimagined by both the
patriarchy and those who wish to destroy it. But there is something so much
more vital and human in our struggle. You are so brave for writing these essays, some of my friends have
said. They don’t understand I am neither brave nor fearless. I am merely
trying to get back to a place called now.